“Work as if you lived in the early days of a better nation.”—Alasdair Gray.

“If these are the early days of a better nation, there must be hope, and a hope of peace is as good as any, and far better than a hollow hoarding greed or the dry lies of an aweless god.”—Graydon Saunders

I've just had an acceptance for my fourth contribution to this series of 700-word reviews of SF classics: this time, it's on James Blish's Cities in Flight. You can read PDFs of all 49 of the series so far here, and they're pretty addictive. And if you're looking for a reading list of classic SF, this is a good place to start - though it could do with a lot more of (and by) women writers.

They Shall Have Stars refers to a past president as a cowboy on horseback with lots of charisma but not a brain in his head. When the novel was written Ronald Reagan had not yet even been governor of California.